Visual characteristics of 'unclassified roads' as you understand them

[trigpoint]

@Richard

I’ve just spent a fortnight cycling through rural France and the situation is not that different from the UK;

I am old enough to have driven in France when the road system was far more like the UK than it is today.

Trunk roads could very much be considered in the same way as Le Route Nationale with two lane

@Richard

Broadening it out to internationally, I would say the above broad principles (without the specifics about centrelines etc.) are good for developed countries. I’ve just spent a fortnight cycling through rural France and the situation is not that different from the UK

@Richard

I’ve just spent a fortnight cycling through rural France and the situation is not that different from the UK;

I am old enough to have driven in France when the road system was far more like the UK than it is today.

Trunk roads could very much be considered in the same way as Le Route Nationale with two lane roads alternating between 90kph NSL in rural sections and 60kph urban sections as they passed thout villages and towns. In my 20s I avoided the expensive autoroutes.

I fondly remember RN1 from Calais to Paris, passing through the village of Nouvion (David Croft must have also travelled this road).

In the 90s France departmentalised their road system and the former Route Natioanle mostly became D roads making the historic routes harder to find and making it more difficult to follow the fun routes and ensuring satnavs direct you onto the toll autoroutes.